After all, with a smartphone in every student's pocket and Google only a tap away, how can the humble sage expect to compete as the font of all online knowledge?

The world is a stage

The very birth of the lecture comes from medieval times, when books were difficult to make and experts were few and far between. Back in those days, the best way to record knowledge was for a monk to stand up the front of the room and recite the passages from a manuscript or book, while the novices below him hurriedly wrote down exactly what was said.

As universities emerged, this tradition continued, with the expert at the pulpit and the juniors in the audience. Hence was born the "sage on the stage": the expert providing their knowledge to others so that they could learn from this font of all wisdom.

Since then the role has evolved, but the basic principle has remained the same. Throughout the decades leading towards the end of the 20th century, models were extended with tutorials, laboratories and workshops. But the academic remained the expert, providing their knowledge to (sometimes eager) students.

As part of this role, it's the academic's job to entertain, and we have all known academics who take this part of the role very seriously, getting dressed up for class, using props or even planning out a performance with costumes and mask in advance.

These academics are embracing the "stage" part of the job, in line with the recent article noted above on explicit teaching, but the core idea still remains: they are the font of knowledge, the single basin from which students should 'drink', building their knowledge of the subject matter through contact with an expert.

The 21st century: when it all changes

But something happened around the turn of the millennium. With the rise of the internet and the beginnings of search engines such as Google, no longer was the expert (or the public library) the only place to acquire knowledge.

All of sudden, if you were out to dinner and somebody asked you who directed The Lord of the Rings movies, it was a quick tap and a search for you to yell out "Peter Jackson". Pub quizzes changed forever, and all of a sudden we found ourselves with a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. Even worse, the answer you read in (or copied faithfully from) a book several years ago may no longer be the answer now.

This change flowed to academia. But as with much in academia, it took some time to take root. While students were already starting to bring their mobile phones into the classroom (to the chagrin of some academics), academia was struggling to move away from tradition.

By and large, lectures still existed. But they were supplemented by blended learning, flipped classrooms and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). All of these technologies looked to keep the "sage on the stage" mentality, but supplement it with other resources, so that the internet and its resources could serve as a supplement to the expert on the pulpit.

But we've started to notice something over the past couple of years. All of sudden, students don't think lectures are as important as they once were. We already know students sometimes don't attend their timetabled lectures, but what has changed is the reason.

Rather than sleeping in or being too busy with homework, the common reason we now hear from our undergraduates is that there is no need to come to the lecture. Why come and listen when they can access YouTube videos on the subject, or read a host of web pages where experts lay it out step-by-step?

And yes, they can even do this from their iPad after they roll over in bed after a big night out!

No longer are academics the sole expert at the pulpit, the sole basin from which students can drink. We are now just one of many possible fonts from which a student can sate their thirst for knowledge.

The lecture as a performance piece

So, what is the humble sage to do in this new paradigm? How do we deal with the fact that our stage is gone, replaced by an garden of different fonts of knowledge?

When students are standing up and recording a lecture on their phone, you know you’re doing something right. University of Denver/Flickr, CC BY-NC

One option could be to embrace the performance art aspect of the role even more.

Talk to any creative type and they will tell you that the real impact of their work is not just the performance, but how it makes the audience change. How it makes them think deeply about the subject.

A creator has really done their job when a movie such as The Imitation Game is not only entertaining, but encourages the viewer to read more about Alan Turing or the Enigma machine. Or perhaps even to contemplate the attitudes to homosexuality in the early 20th century and now. The performance serves as a launching point for investigation of the area, and "moving the furniture" in the mind.

Perhaps the academic needs to aim for the same? Make the lecture an entertaining performance piece on the area that causes the students to look into it more deeply. Recognise that students can get information from many places and embrace this by aiming for the lecture to be a highlight reel and a teaser rather than an expert at the pulpit.

Yes, this means every lecture should be a special occasion, but is that really a bad thing? If it gets our students thinking, then hasn't it done its job?

If academics begin to do this, then maybe we can reclaim the role of "sage on a stage" in a different way. We can move from our old fashioned pulpit to a digital stage, providing a highlight reel of our discipline and becoming a truly digital sage for the active learner.

If this happens, then maybe the measure of success will be a measure of how many students are using a mobile phone in the classroom rather than how many are putting it away!

Despite popular belief, a new study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions (published by SAGE) finds that students who have poor behavior in the classroom do not always have poor grades.

Research highlights the wealth of opportunity in social networking sites; for shared academic knowledge, distribution of information, dialogue amongst peers and academic networking. However, with 40% of 300 million tweeters ...

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One of the ocean's little known carnivores has been allocated a new place in the evolutionary tree of life after scientists discovered its unmistakable resemblance with other sea-floor dwelling creatures.

I think the article is missing a central idea: Teaching is supposed to be a path to understanding for the student.

Understanding is something different than "access to facts". The internet gives us fast access to facts but is much less effective at giving us an understanding.

Being a "sage on a stage" is also not the point. It is certainly important to engage students in an activity that they are basically forced to submit to. But some may treat the classroom as a stage and end up just being a clown. Entertaining? Yes. Effective in getting students to understand the subject? Not necessarily.

The academics need to aim to get their students to understand. If they achieve this it in a dry by being a stone-cold professional that students repsect or like an actor whirling accross the stage with flair is besides the point.

I think the presentation of "digital native" and "active learner" as equivalent is entirely mistaken.

What the article is actually talking about is the problem of teaching autodidacts in an age of search engines and wikipedia. Heterodidacts still need a sage on a stage. Autodidacts need someone that provides direction and motivation appropriate to the autodidact's current development, and access to things that are not well documented or are not available to someone who is learning the topic in a slightly different order than the pedagogy from a dead century would indicate.

I think a professor as sort of a table of contents these day. Sure, we have access to unlimited data (of sometimes questionable accuracy), but unless your web habits are basically a science version of Stumbleupon, you don't even know what you don't know, to look it up. A good lecture should leave you with a general understanding of a topic you probably didn't know about before, and appropriate lead ins for personal internet research after the fact.

They are also good for setting up and moderating student debates about ethics or policies or human rights or whatever soft science topics don't have actual mathematical answers. Even just teaching, through firsthand observation, the philosophy of a civil debate would benefit many students.

Most of what you get online is Opinion -> Libel -> Counter Libel -> devolving into people with an IQ of 65, or 12 year olds telling you that your mom is gay, or something. If there's facts involved, it's usually just a URL and cherry picking

"I can read faster than any teacher can teach. I can skip back and forth to check, refresh, and clarify."---------------------------------------------

But you do not understand what you are reading, or the implications of what you read. I made my living the last 20 years of work by teaching engineers what they should have learned in school. But it was not taught. And since I did not have it in school, I had to teach it to myself. I then taught it to others the way I understood it myself, and made my living by teaching and troubleshooting complex problems for power companies.

You have go go through the agony of understanding, otto, not just cutting and pasting. You do not "fill in the gaps" by looking up some of the word.

made my living the last 20 years of work by teaching engineers what they should have learned in school

No, in reality you were a talking head hired to deliver standardized presentations prepared by genuine experts. Sadly, this gig didnt last very long and so you became a 'consultant', the refuge of failed wannabes. And how busy were you then?https://www.youtu...xVkb7jXQ

I taught over 30,000

This was before the internet. Today, engineers can record their own seminars and podcasts. They dont require the services of talking heads with their suitcases with the wheels on them.

-Your 'reviews' are ALL anonymous. I thought you didn't like anonymous -? Is this because they're all made up? People do this all the time you know. And you've revealed yourself as the kind of lowlife who would have no problem doing this.

And you never directed anybody here to any customer sites. I did however, to the PG&E site which showed that senior level positions require professional educations, experience, and licenses; none of which you have. This is evidence that you lied about your senior level position.

-You've been doing that for months now. So just what kind of teacher can we assume you must have been? A rank amateur who nevertheless thought he knew the subject matter better than the pros who actually composed the lesson plans, and felt obliged to ad lib whenever he saw fit?

How long before you were found out? Is your 30k figure distorted to the same extent as your CA solar statistics??

You're another example of why talking heads are inferior to the actual source.

George is to be found in many places on the net. Why, in 2005 he claimed to be on a hangar roof just in time to see a SR-71 crash.

Maytag repairmen have lots of free time to conjure up all sorts of outrageous bullshit.

But for the rest of you, yup, I watched with concern when a Blackbird, doing what I thought were touch-and-go, was actually dong braking tests, when something failed, he failed to take off, ran off the end of our 15,000 foot runway, onto the overrun, onto the lakebed. I watched as the pilot jettisoned the canopy, put his hands on the sides of the cockpit and pull himself out as the plane was still sliding across the lakebed. He got out and just scrambled clear of the moving wing when the explosion flattened him. Our H-21 was right there, because we were doing an XB-70 test that day. The pilot survived.

The Blackbird may have been the YF-12 variant. It was faster than the SR-71, and took the speed and altitude records from the Rooskies in May 1, 1965. I accidently wandered into their office one day, while they were BSing.

Guess it was an SR. It is hard to tell the differences from the side. The main differences are in the chines, those sharp flanges on the sides. On the YF variant they stop short of the nosecone, while on the SR, they continue all the way to a flattened nose. The YF also has another vertical stabilizer, which folds down in flight.

I love it when goobers without education or experience challenge me. They usually hide behind pseudonyms, and are "game" players, getting kicks by bugging real people, who actually have done things, . . in real life.

In this case, I worked as a lecturer for decades, speaking for full days, actually TEACHING, not just presenting facts. It is hard work, which is why few do it. If the Wiki Warriors think their casual reading of words can convey the entire field of study, they are ignorant of how the world works. They get the jargon wrong, they do not understand the full concepts, misinterpret words, and have no idea of the larger concepts, such as potential consequences.

You can see the dangers of using Wiki by reading some of the comments of those who do not read the articles all the way through, like otto. They need experienced folk like us to keep from making more mistakes and crimes like they did with Bush, Cheney, and "WMD!".

Guess it was an SR. It is hard to tell the differences from the side. The main differences are in the chines, those sharp flanges on the sides. On the YF variant they stop short of the nosecone, while on the SR, they continue all the way to a flattened nose. The YF also has another vertical stabilizer, which folds down in flight

Youre missing the point. The point was not to give you a chance to change the topic and to brag about past glories real or imaginary.

The point was to give yet one more extremely hard to believe example of the kind of self-centered fantasy bullshit you pump out every day.

Youre only here to talk about yourself, and you will keep embellishing and inventing until somebody responds.

otto, stop the bad language. You are an admitted "sock puppet" of some sniper who hides behind an alias or many and plays his "games" with the real posters here. There may be folk who would rather hear what it is like in the Real World, instead of snotty retorts from a stay-at-home Wiki warrior.

Estevan57, are you an otto sock puppet? He brags about how many he has playing games in these fora. I'll have to dig up his own words, adolescent bragging of how he plays with the Real People in the fora.

Meanwhile, you both hide behind pseudonyms.

You cannot prove me wrong because I am correct. Give up, or be recognized as otto-grade character.

I made my living teaching engineers what they should have learned in college: How to Think.

Most teachers teach from a book, not from understanding. It is better to teach concepts, and when understood, then the Natural expressions and relations to what is taught. Memorizing numbers does nothing for comprehension.

Here we are with an article that should have brought some interesting exchanges in this comment column, a thought provoking article, short but effective. Like in a good recipe, the buildup of ideas was starting to blend and I was waiting for the opportunity to add my own little touch. Then came someone who, for some given reason, thought that his life was a more interesting subject than this gem from 'The Conversation'. The charm is broken, the interested crowd flew away. Some people have no ethic.

This thread regards teaching technical topics to provide understanding, not "knowledge", which is not useful if the field and its characteristics are not well-understood. Because I taught utility engineers the finer points of Power Quality, I learned how we have to teach understanding, instead. It is hard work,finding analogies and ways to make the forces and fields imaginable. Once done, most problems can be found.

I expect some nasty comments here about that, but it is my experience.

Not! And that is exactly what I am getting at, who I am is irrelevant. When there is approbation for something I wrote, it is the written comment in itself that gets approves; nobody really care who TechnoCreed is, what's more, a good proportion of posters do not even give a damn about who Albert Einstein was!!! Why do you think they should care about who you are?

The sad thing about you Mr G. is that, even though you post interesting comments, these comments get lost behind you! You trample them out of worthiness with your big boots!

Did you want loyalty to you or honesty?

Those words make sense in authentic relationship only Mr G; the internet is not a place to seek these.

"Those words make sense in authentic relationship only Mr G; the internet is not a place to seek these."--------------------------------------

You complained I approved of your previous posts, but not the last one, as if I owed you some kind of loyalty, rather than to the point we were debating. I mentioned my experience because it is directly regarding the issue before us: Whether Wiki warriors can be really educated, as well as those with tutors, teachers, or explainers.

And any trampling is a result of having to defend my self from the vandal, ghost of otto, who fixated on something long ago, and has made it his goal in his empty life to discredit mine.

I come online because for whatever reason, I have gone through awakenings in many industries and fields. Sorry, but that is the way life works. It is important because without that experience one makes erroneous assumptions and projections from Wiki.

I made my living teaching engineers what they should have learned in college: How to Think.

Most teachers teach from a book, not from understanding. It is better to teach concepts, and when understood, then the Natural expressions and relations to what is taught. Memorizing numbers does nothing for comprehension.

You're operating under some strange notion that a book can't teach you to think or convey understanding because a real live teacher has some magical quality that enables them to communicate the concepts.

Well, what if we write down what the teacher said, print the pictures the teacher showed, and make a textbook out of that? Where do we lose that magical quality?

Outside of physical lessons and examples that you need to have your hands on, there's no more value in the teacher than what he says, and that's why the textbook usually wins by being more thorough in a subject than a lecturer ever has time to.

And you don't need to ask a book, "Excuse me, would you explain that again, I didn't quite get it"

I find that by the end of a two-hour lecture, 99% of the people in the classroom have missed more than half the things spoken because their attention was elsewhere at the moment. The teacher has to perform like a circus monkey in order to keep everyone's attention all the time, wasting time entertaining the students rather than teaching them.

The other version is when the students all spend their time scribbling everything that's being said in their notebooks so they could read the notes later, because they have no hope to memorize the stuff as the teacher speaks, and end up paying no attention to what's being said. Then they try to review their notes and find they don't understand them either.

The whole situation is not really conductive to learning, which is why most teachers in most subjects are easily beaten by a well-written textbook.

A well-written textbook in the digital era would be a kind of hypertext document where the top level concepts and abstracts and terms are communicated first, then expanded down to their components, and their components, to the point where a student might even follow the branches to basic elementary school level arithmetics because they've forgotten how to expand a square.

This is something a teacher simply cannot achieve. They can't spend time explaining the basics. As a result, the student wastes time not learning because they can't follow the teacher any further. It's made worse if the teacher has an attitude problem.

Everyone has these gaps and lapses in memory and learning. A digital texbook can go tirelessly as deep into the basics as needed to get the point across, on all relevant subjects, all the time.

You know, like wikipedia, which gkam hates because it undermines his status as a "teacher".

"This is something a teacher simply cannot achieve. They can't spend time explaining the basics. As a result, the student wastes time not learning because they can't follow the teacher any further. It's made worse if the teacher has an attitude problem."--------------------------------------------

Boy, I am SURE glad I did not hear about this before I taught over 30,000 engineers and technicians the finer points of Power Quality!!

But I hope Eikka goes to my website or some other, looks up my name and reads my reviews. He can start with my name and 7X24Exchange, the group of data center designers to whom I spoke every year.

"You know, like wikipedia, which gkam hates because it undermines his status as a "teacher"."-----------------------------

Wiki is good for general knowledge, but one must usually have the experience in the field to understand the implications of the information. You can get folk like otto who do not read all the way down, and wind up making fools of themselves. Or they think the jargon used by the scientists have exactly the same meaning as those in other fields, such as the word "trick" which means a better shorter way to do a complex task, but the goobers took to mean deception.

Here is an example: If you are out at the end of a circuit with problems, and want to see the current in the Neutral, how do you get it? Reading Neutral to Ground Voltage allows you to read the current as voltage in the Neutral, and the waveshape will be accurate. This allows you to take RMS and peak measurements, and compute Crest Factor, along with N-G drops.

... while you are good for no reliable knowledge at all. Because you try to convince people that RF energy from orbital solar power stations will cause cataracts, when studies by professionals will tell you this would be impossible.

one must usually have the experience in the field to understand the implications of the information

Gkam implies that no wiki contributors have experience, while his many 6 month temp positions qualify as experience.

How ignorant.

Gkam thinks his experience makes lies like the one that RF from orbital power stations will cause cataracts despite studies which prove otherwise, true. And when called on his lies he merely cites more unrelated experience to prove that he must be right.

"Because you try to convince people that RF energy from orbital solar power stations will cause cataracts, when studies by professionals will tell you this would be impossible."---------------------------------------

"For the near field 2.45 GHz frequency, the minimum power density to cause cataracts in rabbits was found to be 150 mW/cm2 for 100 minutes; a retrolental temperature of 41 °C was necessary to be achieved. When the eye temperature was kept low by external cooling, cataracts were not produced by higher field intensities; that supports the hypothesis of a thermal mechanism being involved."

"average power density of the sun's rays is about 100 mW/cm2 while the design maximum of satellite solar power systems is 25 mW/cm2 on the planet's surface"

Maybe you can find an airbase with tactical fighters having attack radar, so you can feel all warm inside.

How long do you want to live in the radar beam from space? Want your kids to grow up in it? You sound like the folk who really believed nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter", just because someone like me said something else. Are you in the Republican Congress?

BTW, this thread regards those of us who taught understanding for a living professionally. What is your experience in that?

The difference between Wiki and those of us who convey knowledge is the ability to be there, responding to the real needs of the students, finding ways to get across the ideas of the basic fundamentals, so knowledge includes deep understanding.

Not having had engineering in school, I had to teach it to myself, and used those techniques to teach others. The approach worked with those who did not find understanding in the rote memorization taught in schools, dryly.

You have to engage them with things they never had before. For example, we teach how shielded isolation transformers filter out noise, but not how they really work. How much of the power is taken out with the noise? Why or why not?

The difference between Wiki and those of us who convey knowledge is the ability to be there

But 'the ability to be there' has not taught you that there is a difference between RF from a microwave oven and an orbital solar power station and a fighter jet. Further it has given you the impression that you can make up your own facts about these things rather than look them up.

This makes you a very dangerous person indeed. Certainly one who shouldnt be in a position to teach others.

You have to engage them with things they never had before

This is what I mean by dangerous. They have no way of telling truth from the kind of bullshit you enjoy spreading around, except for what they might find online.

Your lack of integrity would at least threaten to waste their time. Worse, it could give them wrong impressions about things vital to their continued education and work.

How much power is filtered out by the shield, otto? How much? If you had taken my classes, you could figure it out

What shields are you referring to re orbital solar power stations? How do they affect the stated figures in the report I posted about the amount of RF that reaches the ground?

Why are you posting random bullshit facts in this argument? Do you think that demonstrating that you know random bullshit facts makes you any less WRONG about orbital solar power stations causing cataracts???

There ARE teachers like gkam out there who are willing to lie and fabricate because the attention and the thrill of the limelight is more important to them than conveying real knowledge honestly and selflessly.

It must be hard to be otto, an admitted gamer playing online. I'll bet he gets to bully lots of folk here, but not me. You see, otto is not real. He/she already admitted he/she is a sniper, a lurker, a coward who hides behind pseudonyms to play games online with folk who are serious.

This thread is about teaching concepts, Toots, in case you got carried away with Wiki. You can't get "smart" by reading and pasting stuff out of Wiki, and out of context.

I was elucidating how the teaching of concepts allows true problem-solving in the real world, based on understanding the fundamentals to the point one can figure it all out for themselves, and not have to read it on Wiki, like the goobers.

The example was one which tested understanding, not "learning". What is the answer?

The thread is about professional teachers versus you reading Wiki. I maintain the difference is in understanding versus "knowledge", which usually means memorizing phrases and how to work something out, but not understanding why.

"For example, we teach how shielded isolation transformers filter out noise, but not how they really work. How much of the power is taken out with the noise? Why or why not?"

So, what happens, and why or why not? If you had my courses, you would understand it sufficiently to figure out the particular question.

So the power system takes six hundred minutes to accumulate the same dose? How long is that, otto?

Microwave radiation dosage isn't cumulative because the mechanism by which it causes cataracts is the increase in temperature in the tissue, which isn't cumulative over time. Upon exposure to microwaves, the lens tissue reaches a particular temperature at a particular power density.

You're simply spreading misinformation.

The reason why microwaves can cause cataracts is the same reason why high fever (>41 C) is deadly. The proteins in the lens have a very particular temperature where they begin to denature (cook like an egg). Below that temperature, nothing happens.

If you had my courses, you would understand it sufficiently to figure out the particular question.

That's just it though. To understand what you're talking about there, one would have to take YOUR course, because you aren't making the question clear. You're intentionally obfuscating it or leaving out important detail to make yourself seem important, like so many professors who write bad textbooks so the students would have to take the course to learn the subject.

That's just being a bad teacher.

It's not Otto's failing if he can't answer the question; it's YOUR failing to present the question in a way that he can't obtain the necessary information elsewhere.

The answer to the question is that the power removed is at minimum the difference in the energy spectrum after removing the noise, added with whatever practical inefficiencies your filter has, which mostly need to be measured to know.

Remember, education isn't supposed to be some secret cabal where only the initiated (and paying) members are let in on esoteric information.

Education is supposed to be a bridge between the individual and the vast amounts of knowledge that exist out there in the open, to enable people to make use of it and add to it in generally useful ways.

Teachers like gkam, who act as if they were gatekeepers to knowledge that is obtainable only through them, are a detriment to the whole society - especially when they have too high opinions of their own expertise and knowledge.

-thinks that dried manure is a major cause of 'high' air pollution (whatever that is) in the Central Valley. But when we look we find that it's not on the list. George made it up like he made up the notion that fallout is the MAJOR cause of lung cancer, when it too is not even on the list.http://phys.org/n...rgy.html

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, pretend that they can. And everyone suffers.

Teachers like gkam, who act as if they were gatekeepers to knowledge that is obtainable only through them, are a detriment to the whole society - especially when they have too high opinions of their own expertise and knowledge

Oh I think it's worse than that. George belongs to a large class of people who believe that where facts come from is more important than the veracity of the facts themselves.

These are the priests, philosophers, politicians, liberal arts academes, and teachers that like George spend much time developing haughty reputstions as a prerequisite for spouting whatever they want free from the threat of criticism.

They have ruined the world and I'm not sure that it can be rebuilt. Not until they are expunged at any rate.

Their execration began with the enlightenment. The Internet with its instant availability of verified knowledge, will be their end.

"Teachers like gkam, who act as if they were gatekeepers to knowledge that is obtainable only through them, are a detriment to the whole society - especially when they have too high opinions of their own expertise and knowledge."---------------------------------------

I suggest you read my reviews, and stop letting your adolescent emotions decide your stance in science. If you want any of my "secret" courses, I'll send them to you. What is your address?

I looked up otto and found he has been on this site looking for "phonies" since 201`0, trying to "out" other folk with different opinions. But otto is not real, he is an admitted gamer playing here using pseudonyms, and assumes we are all as phony as he/she is.

I am George Kamburoff, a professional lecturer, teacher and troubleshooter for power companies. Ask otto who he/she is.

Go ahead. Ask him/her what he/she has done in life. We need to see some proof of his right to challenge others.

"The answer to the question is that the power removed is at minimum the difference in the energy spectrum after removing the noise, added with whatever practical inefficiencies your filter has, which mostly need to be measured to know."--------------------------------------

I am George Kamburoff, a professional lecturer, teacher and troubleshooter for power companies

We know. And anybody doing a web search of your name will be led right to this site where they can read for themselves all the nonsense you think you know. Like how H2 explosions at Fukushima initiated prompt criticalities in molten Pu puddles which threw macroscopic vessel parts 130km, without leaving a crater.

But I don't have to repeat all of it. That's the beauty of Google. Why don't you give it a try?

Go ahead. Ask him/her what he/she has done in life. We need to see some proof of his right to challenge others

Again George Kamburoff / gkam believes that who you are is more important than the facts you post.

Doesn't matter who we are - your belief that HIGH ENERGY alpha can't penetrate skin, that radiation of sufficient strength can't kill within minutes, or that Pu is at this moment raining down on Idaho, belies the true quality of your knowledge and experience and character.

As well as the FACT that you claim to be a professional engineer while having admitted you have no relevant education, degree, EIT-level experience, or PE. This might be relatively harmless except that you use it to justify what you post. And what you post indicates that you're no engr which many here have concluded.

And it doesn't matter who exposes this paucity or what they have done. Facts speak for themselves.

Never having been in the Real World, this sniper who goes by the pseudonym of otto gets his feelings hurt by those with experience, so he makes it his mission to try to show me up, only to find out I am real, unlike otto himself.

This thread regards the transmission of understanding, which is my field. What is yours? Let me see your reviews.

When we wrote and performed the first Power Quality Seminar Series for EPRI, we mixed the dry numbers from professionals to more down-to-Earth explanations and analogies from me to get across the reality of how the physics work.

We look at expanding and contracting fields in the only dual force in the Universe, Electromagnetism, and their implications, instead of just memorizing a formula.

otto makes fun of some of my reviews, which are real, but has apparently never gotten tears in his eyes from another professional in complete glee telling him he really understands it for the first time.

It is emotional.

It makes the hard work worth while, but one takes risks in being so open. You can see the evidence above.

Ahaahaaaa this is how detached you are george. You tried to use your experience to justify the nonsense that dried manure is a major cause of 'high' air pollution (whatever that is) in the Central Valley..

Its not.

Your experience is worthless in this respect. It hasnt taught you not to make things up.

This disconnect of yours between experience and the nonsense you post means that youre insane.

tto makes fun of some of my reviews, which are real

No, theyre not. Youre lying. You made them up or imagined them.

another professional in complete glee telling him he really understands it for the first time

Would he be as sure after reading your insistence here that dried manure is a major cause of 'high' air pollution (whatever that is) in the Central Valley?

From the article by your jap expat living in a Romanian basement and claiming self-diagnosed radiation sickness which miraculously cleared up after he migrated:

"It was 2μm diameter particle. The ball-looking shape proves it was molten in high temperature and quickly cooled down. The particles contain Uranium, Zirconium etc, which are the same material as nuclear fuel and the structure inside the vessels."

-A 2μm diameter microscopic particle is dust, not a macroscopic 'part' which needed to be thrown by an immense nuke explosion. It was indeed blown - by wind.

-From reading your 'source' it is obvious that the author is not very good English-speaking, no? He said 'parts' but obviously was talking about dust.

But you and your crack team of nuke experts concluded solely on the mistranslation of one word, that H2 must have exploded which caused a molten Pu puddle full of all sorts of contamination, to prompt criticality.

Now, I've explained this all to you in depth in previous threads, including giving you examples of real nuke explosions which caused immense craters but nevertheless could throw macroscopic material no more than a kilometer or 2.

But I assume that, like other bullshit artistes, you think that waiting a certain amount of time and then reposting the same sorry ignorance will somehow make it right.

How come? You think stupid clears up like a flesh wound?

I do not tire making you look like an idiot. Keep it up mr bullshit - oh sorry, mr George Kamburoff / gkam, who can be found on any Google search along with all his posts. Wave to the audience-

Okay, otto, I will start posting your stuff. It is time you were outed, as well.

The nasty mouth who calls himself/herself "otto" has already bragged about being a phony who plays his games online with Real Folk. Yup, he bragged about it in these fora. Having been showed up as a nobody, he tried to challenge my experience, but lost every time, because unlike him, I am real, and have done real things.

Let's discuss the real topic here, shall we? We can ignore the adolescents like otto. I am George Kamburoff, professional lecturer and troubleshooter for power companies. It is directly tied to this thread, in which otto has no experience. Look me up. I will not hide or cower behind a pseudonym like game playing otto.

I hope we have a psychologist who reads these things. There is an entire conference of material in otto.

To continue, the secret to teaching understanding as opposed to knowledge is the depth of it, down to a "feeling", essentially. We instinctively know what the signs are when we trip and fall, because it is familiar to us,. If we use the correct set of instruction, examples, and analogy, it can be made to become sufficiently familiar that we can model the situations mentally.

The problem with "teachers" in academic environments is often the lack of actual experience. When one gets genuine professional engineers, with real experience and practical information, they become more familiar with the topic.

When I went to teach at the local Community College, the Dean asked me where I learned it, and wanted to see the coursework. There was none: I helped to develop the field, and was going to teach what I was teaching to professionals already in the field of energy and sustainable operations.

Most "educators" often have no practical experience, and pass down what they learned from others.

When I went to teach at the local Community College, the Dean asked me where I learned it, and wanted to see the coursework. There was none: I helped to develop the field

Did you develop this field in the same way that you developed the fields of CA pollution statistics fabrication, or the field of H2-initiated Pu fission? Because if so, and you were actually teaching prior such drivel, then you should be arrested.

Remember, your dried manure theory was predicated on the misuse and misunderstanding of the phrase 'volatile solids' which is only used to describe materials in liquid waste. And your fission theory included the misunderstanding that H2 couldn't detonate (it can, even unconfined). So your bullshit is multidimensional.

was going to teach what I was teaching to professionals already in the field of energy and sustainable operations

George, he couldn't hire you because it was obvious you are a bullshit artist. Isn't that the more reasonable explanation?